Edison to lay off 600 from San Onofre

Around 600 non-union workers will be laid off from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station over the next two months, Southern California Edison announced Wednesday.

The move is the latest in the utility's efforts to reduce its workforce from 1,500 to 400 by next year as it decommissions the nuclear power plant. The utility announced June 7 that it would decommission the nuclear plant, which has been offline since January 2012 because of a small radiation leak and the subsequent discovery of rapid wear on tubing within recently replaced steam generators.

A statement from SoCal Edison says the company will work to ensure an equitable transition for the laid off employees, and will hold a job fair for them.

“The premature shutdown of San Onofre is very unfortunate,” Pete Dietrich, SCE’s senior vice president and chief nuclear officer said in the statement. “We have an extraordinary team of men and women. We appreciate their years of dedicated service and will continue to extend to them the utmost respect and consideration.”

The plant had four other layoff notices since December in its effort to trim 730 employees. Those reductions, however, were part of a plan to reorganize that was initiated before the generator problems surfaced, the company has said. Some of the previous layoffs applied to union-workers. The company is working with the Utility Workers Union of America and the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers through a collective bargaining process on the transition for union workers.

The company's 2012 annual report showed accrued severance costs of $112 million from current and approved reductions in staffing.